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by Cumberbatch Critter (ivelostmyspectacles)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Blindness, Coping, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Support, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-13 22:21:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10523085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivelostmyspectacles/pseuds/Cumberbatch%20Critter
Summary: Turns out going blind is a path straight to self-loathing.Otherwise known as: Ignis reaches his limit. The breakdown has been building for years.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Also another piece I wrote before actually getting to this part in the game, when I had an inkling of an idea that he went blind and didn't know how or to what extent or what was happening in the game, so... the timeline's not exactly spot on >_< That being said! Despite that I still really love this one *o* 
> 
> these boys never had time to catch their breath
> 
> I do not own _FFXV_. Thanks for reading~

Tolerances only lasted so long, and his had started to crumble when they had set foot in their hotel.

Well, no, it had started out sooner. It had started off with walking into things and tripping over his own two feet. His depth perception still hasn’t recovered. Stairs are hell. Being out in the terrain is even worse; he’s lost track how many times he’s taken a twig to the face and stumbled over an uneven patch of ground. How many times he’s fallen. He tells himself it’s because it is new again. It will take some getting used to.

It had started when he’d been forced to wear gloves that would cover his fingertips, hiding the nicks and cuts there. Cooking had become its own personal sort of nightmare. It still is. He can’t do it. He does try, and sometimes succeeds, with simple things, and the fact that he can do it at all is a blessing. But he’s still by no means at the level of ease that he used to be, and tries not to think that he may never be; most days, he ends by banging his hand against something _at least_. The days that he doesn’t injure himself feel like a small victory. The days that he does…

He tries not to dwell, but the latest dish in camp– something simple, painstakingly chopping up onions for soup– ends up with a throbbing finger and a hastily swallowed exclamation of pain. He sucks the blood away and sleeps with his gloves on so that none of them notice how far he’s fallen.

He had gotten properly injured yesterday. He hadn’t known what had hurt worse: the hot, throbbing sensation beneath his bicep or the taste of failure in his mouth. He had said nothing, and Gladiolus had bound it later at camp without saying anything, either. It was the failure, he’d realised. The failure was worse.

When they settle down at a hotel, the promise and fulfillment of a hot bath doesn’t relax him. The tub isn’t spacious, but the water is steaming hot; it should take the tension out of his shoulders and it doesn’t. He secures the towel around his torso and hooks his fingers around his glasses. Some days, like today, wearing them feels ludicrous. Most of the time, it’s so embedded in his routine that he feels strange without them.

Bright light hurts his eyes, anyway. Sometimes.

One perk– if you could call it that– is that he cannot see himself in the mirror. He imagines that his scars are especially noticeable now; after the heat and steam from the bath, that they look ghastly, dark red even against flushed skin. He touches the trailing edge of the one over his left eye. It doesn’t hurt any longer, not in the way that it had at first, but it’s still tender to touch in certain circumstances. He tries to avoid it when he can, but sometimes even the press of the glasses bumping his skin is enough to bother him. He’s not sure if it’s physical or psychological at this point.

Lingering in thought and the _what-if_ s associated doesn’t do him any good. He’s tried to avoid that, too, since all of this happened. So he doesn’t linger this time, either, just washes his face and picks up his pajamas to dress. Perhaps a good night’s sleep will improve things.

_(As if that’ll make things go back to the way they were.)_

Their room is silent when he steps out of the bathroom, but he hears the distinct shuffle of movement, fabric rustling, and he knows he is not alone. More’s the pity.

“The bath is all yours,” Ignis says.

“Oh.” It’s Noctis. “Alright. Thanks.”

There isn’t another response. He hears no other movement and hazards a guess that he and Noctis are the only ones here. “The others?”

“Prompto went to take a call. Gladio’s at the bar.”

“There’s a bar?” Maybe the night _could_ improve.

“Something like that.”

Ignis huffs a tiny sigh; maybe he’ll get a drink when everyone else is asleep. For now, he sinks onto the bed and tries not to cringe when sitting exacerbates the bruise he’s got blooming on the back of his thigh from the fight earlier.

“Did you dress that arm?”

Ignis opens his eyes out of reflex– still– and turns his head towards Noctis. Then he turns his head back to look towards his arm, the one injured badly enough for dressing. “I’m wearing clothes, yes.” He can’t help it. Dry wit has always been his go-to.

“Ha. Very funny, Iggy.” Noctis’s chair squeaks. “Do you want me to do it?” he asks, and actually sounds animated at the suggestion.

Ignis wishes he wouldn’t. It makes turning him down more uncomfortable. “That’s really not necessary.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“I can do it.” It comes out uncharacteristically sharp. Noctis pauses, and Ignis’s breath catches in his throat. He wants to croak out an apology, but he can’t get there fast enough.

Noctis doesn’t say anything immediately, but when he does, his voice is far too gentle. “I know you can.”

He’s wise beyond his years, their Noctis. That’s what happens, he guesses, when you have a kingdom riding on your shoulders. He isn’t even accounting for the _other_ tragedies he’s been through. But Noctis _is_ their King, and Ignis isn’t supposed to speak to him in such a tone, and Noctis… Noctis isn’t supposed to be unendingly patient with him, and he is.

His eyes burn. Maybe it’s sense memory. Maybe it’s real. But, suddenly, Ignis is dangerously close to tears and he has to propel himself from the bed to rummage through their things for gauze to tend to his arm, even if he hadn’t planned to yet. It is something to distract him.

He is not used to being out of control, and he _loathes_ it with all of his being.

It’s silent for a time, while he painstakingly tends to his wound. It would have been easier to let Noctis do it, but he’s stubborn. They do too much for him now. He’d had to be led into the hotel because it was so dark in the first place. He can surely bandage his own arm.

Noctis continues to watch him. Ignis can feel his eyes on him. “Does it hurt?” he asks eventually, and Ignis shakes his head.

“It’s just a scratch, Noct. We’ve had plenty worse.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

The purpose behind Noctis’s words hang in the air; Ignis’s hand stills on the bandages. He has to force himself to swallow, and then force himself to finish up wrapping his arm. “Not much,” he says quietly, and uses his teeth to tear off a strip of gauze tape to secure it. “Not anymore.”

Noctis’s tone softens. “I’m sorry, Ignis.”

Ignis struggles with his shirt as he pulls it back on. “What’s done is done.”

“Yeah, you can say that, but I know you.”

“Do you?” Another reflex answer. He’s tired, and hurting, and doesn’t want to talk about this. It’s not something they go into detail about. It’s not something _he_ wants to go into detail about. It’s bringing him up short.

Noctis doesn’t seem to care. “Yeah, I do.”

“Yes. Well–”

“You don’t have to try and be so capable.”

All the air leaves his lungs in a rush. He’s been having one of those days, and of course Noctis notices. Of course he does. Because, yes, he knows him. They all do. They know him better than anyone in the world. Ignis tries to not let his shoulders slump too noticeably, and is certain that he fails. “Yes, I do.”

“Why?” Noctis asks bluntly.

Why is tonight a night for hard questions? He doesn’t want to face this. He doesn’t want to _answer_ this. “It’s just what I do, Noct. Cooking, sewing, driving… The domestic chores, I’m good at those. I take care of you guys. I always have.”

“You don’t _have_ to,” Noctis says. “You’ve taken care of us. Let us take care of you, Ignis. Let us fuss over you for awhile.” He stands, it sounds like. “You’re allowed to rest, you know. Don’t take all the burden… and all that.” Voice nonchalant, his footsteps come closer until he sits on the bed opposite. “Sorry, I’m not really… good at this stuff. It’s just, we’ve been through a lot. I’m worried. _We’re_ worried. Okay?”

 _Christ._ The knife sinks into his chest and _twists_. The air’s crushed from his lungs and the hurt radiates straight up to those horrible scars. He tries to swallow, and then doesn’t dare to move. He doesn’t _want_ this. He hadn’t wanted _any_ of this, particularly not the onslaught of self- _loathing_ –

“Sometimes you have to fall, to be able to be picked back up,” Noctis continues. “You guys taught me that.”

Ignis isn’t quite capable of stopping the choked gasp. Mortified at the strangled noise that escapes his mouth, and with the tears that fall, he puts his face in his hands and tries to find his last vestiges of self control. The mattress shifts and creaks, and Noctis is there, a hand on his shoulder, and Ignis breaks down and fucking _sobs_.

He’s never liked crying. He’s not good at it. He supposes that no one ever is, and that it’s nothing anyone ever wants to do, but it feels like his carefully constructed world is shattered and the feeling leaves him even more helpless than the blindness and his incapabilities. He wants things to be normal while being acutely aware that they never will. He is _also_ aware that wishing for a perfect world is a fool’s hope. He’s too old for that kind of idealism. He doesn’t even want that. He just wants… _their_ normal, or the closest thing they can get to it.

Tranquility. Please, God, give them _peace_.

Noctis pulls him into his arms, tucks Ignis’s head against his shoulder, and says nothing. Ignis is lost to the press of sensation, the horrible aching in his chest and the tears drying cold on his face and the warmth of Noctis’s arms around him.

When their room door swings open, his body reacts before his mind can process; there’s too much in his head for him to properly rationalise the consequence of the door opening, of Gladio or Prompto or both coming back, but he goes instantly tense and wants to spring for the door himself. He wouldn’t get far. The table’s in an awkward position; he’d bumped into it on the way in, even with the stick and a helping hand. He’s prepared to flee, but he can’t move.

“Iggy!” Prompto, then. And Gladiolus, too, going by the second set of heavier footsteps and the door closing after the first set had run across the room. “Are you okay??”

Noctis answers for him. “He’ll be okay.”

Prompto’s hand lands on his shoulder. “Is it your arm?”

Ignis has to force himself to answer, and he practically croaks out the “no”.

“Oh.” A pause, in which Ignis tries to breathe, and then Prompto gives a little “well!”, there’s two distinct thuds of something hitting the floor, and then the mattress gives as Prompto crawls onto the bed. And settles himself with his face against the back of Ignis’s shoulder and his arms around his torso.

“What are you–” The words stick on his tongue; speech is still beyond him.

“It’s a group hug, duh! Gladio.”

“Huh.”

“Get over here!”

Gladio sighs, long-suffering like, and perches himself on the bed in the last available spot next to Ignis. Now his hand falls where Prompto’s had been, chill replaced with encompassing warmth again. “There, there,” he says flatly, so flatly that it draws an embarrassingly wet laugh from Ignis. The tone is bordering sarcastic, but the hand on his shoulder is gentle, and squeezes as Ignis resurfaces from Noctis’s jacket to finally take off his glasses from where they’ve been shoved up against his forehead.

He scrubs his hands against his eyes, still a little harder than necessary over his scar as if he can wipe it away, as if all of these emotions will go away overnight, but maybe, _maybe_ , he can make progress. Keep pushing on. He’s never been one for idle hands. He’s trying to not let it change. Even if today is proof that some days are harder than others. “... Thanks, you guys,” he mumbles, and he feels wrecked, he feels like everything he knows is in irreparable pieces, and… it doesn’t feel as hopeless as he expects, like this. Strange. Good. It makes him threat to cry again, for a much more hopeful reason.

It’ll take time, but–

“I’ve got your back,” Noctis says in a monotone, and Ignis laughs out loud again. He still feels a little hysterical, but not necessarily in a bad way.

“Always?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ve all got each other’s backs,” Gladio says, and pats Ignis a little forcefully on the back as if to prove it. “Don’t you forget it.”

“Thank you,” he mutters again, and scrubs the heels of his hands against his eyes again. He slips his glasses back on. His smile is weak, but he musters it up, anyway.

“That’s what we’re here for,” Prompto says brightly. His face turns against Ignis’s back, and then he pulls away. “Oh, they have Ebony at the mini-mart! I was going to ask if you wanted some.”

Alcohol probably wasn’t the best idea, anyway. “That’s rather a ludicrous question, isn’t it?” he jokes lightly.

“He always wants Ebony,” Gladiolus says, rising from the bed. “You should have just brought it up.”

“I left my money up here!” Prompto scrambles off the bed, presumably to grab his wallet.

Ignis doesn’t follow his motion. Instead, he looks towards Noctis and tries to inject as much grateful emotion as he can into the look as he can. He’s never been good at emotions in general, has he? “Thank you, Noct,” he says shortly, over the banter of their two friends on the background. He doesn’t know how it comes out. Probably not at all, considering the eyes.

“Any time,” Noctis says, like it’s no big deal, like the friend Ignis had known before he had changed, too. In all of their struggles, maybe soon they’ll have time to rest.

 

Ignis nurses a can of Ebony later, when Noctis pulls himself away from the papers and the news they’ve caught bits and pieces of, Prompto deviating from tapping at mobile games or taking photos on the phone, and Gladio eventually starts to read a passage out loud from his book and they ask him to continue. They’re sprawled out across the beds, and the chairs, and they all have their scars– physically and mentally– and it is… calm.

Maybe they will find their peace. Maybe their peace has found them already.

Ignis breathes out and closes his eyes, fingers seizing around the can. He smiles to himself and pushes his glasses up his nose.


End file.
